Jennifer's Story

Jennifer's Story

New York

If anyone is proof that you can be hard-working and still not make enough to get by, it's me: When you tally up my hours at two different overnight home healthcare jobs and the extra hours on the weekend, I work about 65 hours a week; my husband, a mechanic, averages 45. If I'm lucky I get an hour of sleep when I get home each morning before my 4 active kids are up getting ready for school. There's Emily, 17; Kyle, 13; Amber, 9; and Mia is 7. I ache for more time with them, but once the rent is paid there are utility bills and mountains of medical debts; after that it's a toss-up of whether to buy groceries or put off the light bill another month. I make tough decisions like this daily, though none quite wrecked me like having to give away our dog when we were forced to move. It was that or live out of our car, and sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Fortunately, I can breathe a little knowing that once a month we can visit the pantry at Resurrection Life Fellowship and stock up on groceries to get us by. It's set up like a grocery store, allowing me to pick the food I know my kids will like, and making the experience feel discreet and almost like shopping. It's a godsend, too: in the afternoons, neighborhood kids pour in and out of the house along with my own kids, and I can't bear to deny them a snack. I don't know what anyone else's life is like at home. I just know that at least my family is getting by with the help of the pantry and that we're all together, and that's what matters the most.